Quilliam Foundation

This looks like an interesting change from the usual :

the Quilliam Foundation

founded by two British ex-islamists, to :

- Expose and challenge the weaknesses, inconsistencies, and failings of Islamist thought and actions;
- Provide a scripturally rooted theological and ideological alternative to the rigidity of Islamism and extreme Wahhabism;
- Narrate public testimonies as to why Islamists and extreme Wahhabites (of various persuasions) abandoned these movements;
- Encourage current Islamists and extreme Wahhabites to sever ties with their movements and enter the fold of mainstream Islam;
- Advocate full integration of Muslims into Western society as citizens, not as a faith community, and counter the separatism of Islamists.

My source tells me that the entry entitled "Ed Husain wins at Doha Debates, Qatar", the proposition that "Muslism are failing to combat extremism" is an especially informative and hopeful piece of news. Check it out at the foundation's website to learn more.

Mohammed Ihkan en 'Mijn Verhaal'

Erasmushogeschool – departement RITS
organiseert

Filmvoorstelling “MIJN VERHAAL” van Mohammed Ihkan + ontmoeting met filmmaker

“Mijn verhaal” brengt het relaas van twee in Antwerpen wonende Marokkanen van de eerste generatie die eind jaren zestig naar België migreerden. Mohammed Abdeslam en Mohammed Abezik hebben een heel eigen geschiedenis en vertellen het verhaal van hun migratie naar België en de jaren daarna.

Waarom zijn deze mensen naar Europa gekomen ? Waarom zijn ze hier gebleven ? Voelen zij zich hier goed ? Deze reportage van Mohammed Ihkan wil een breder beeld geven over de Marokkanen van de eerste generatie en over hun kijk op de situatie vandaag.

In het kader van de colleges “Media & Maatschappij : representatie van het Midden-Oosten” (Jan De Pauw & Wouter Hessels)

Maandag 14 april 2008 om 10.00 u. in de kleine aula van EhB-RITS campus Sonart, Sint-Hubrechtsstraat 12, 1150 Brussel / Sint-Pieters-Woluwe.

Why Sharia ?

Noah Feldman, author of the well-publicised book 'After Jihad: America and the Struggle for Islamic Democracy'(2003) in the New York Times Magazine today.
Read and think it over !

Noah Feldman, a contributing writer for the magazine, is a law professor at Harvard University and an adjunct senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. This essay is adapted from his book “The Fall and Rise of the Islamic State,” which will be published later this month.

Addendum : Onze islam bestaat niet

De mediawatchers van Kif Kif laten in De Standaard van 11 maart '08 opnieuw van zich horen, in een opiniestuk getiteld 'Onze islam bestaat niet'.
Centraal in de tekst staat de stelling dat de zogenaamde botsing der beschaving klinkklare nonsens is. De auteurs beroepen zich op het boek 'Who speaks for Islam ?' van John L. Esposito & Dalia Mogahed (2008), en citeren getrouw uit het persbericht dat terzake ondermeer op Common Ground News Service verscheen. (zie hier)
Alleen, de echt spannende stukjes uit het bericht ontbreken in de opiniebijdrage. Voor de volledigheid, en de feitelijkheid, voeg ik ze hier toe :

"The findings also revealed that Muslims across the world want neither secularism nor theocracy. They want freedom, rights and democratisation. At the same time, however, they claim that society should be built upon religious Islamic values and that the shari'a (Islamic law) should be a source of law. Simply put, the majority of Muslim women and men want rights and religion, and they don't see the two as being mutually exclusive.

The West will be pleased to learn that nine out of ten Muslims are moderates – good news for those optimistic about co-existence. Muslims say the most important thing Westerners can do to improve relations with their societies is to change their negative views toward Muslims, respect Islam and re-evaluate foreign policies.

The unfortunate news is that there is a large number of politically radicalised Muslims (the 7 percent previously mentioned, which translates to approximately 91 million individuals) that could be pushed to support or perpetrate violence against civilians. Challenges for the West will only grow as long as these Muslims continue to feel politically dominated and disregarded."

Leg daar bijvoorbeeld ook nog eens de Humo bevraging van eind 2007 naast, en je krijgt een beeld van gewone mensen die zoals andere gewone mensen vooruit willen met hun leven, maar wel heel nadrukkelijk binnen de grenzen van hun islamitisch geloof en rechtssysteem. En net daar wringt het schoentje, zo weten we, botsing der beschavingen of niet.

Muslims of Europe Charter

The news is bright and comforting : 400 European muslim organisations have signed and published a charter on the position, role and attitude of muslims in Europe.
(See here)

The text talks about the fundamental nature of Islam, religious identity, citizenship, equality, and aims to build bridges among muslims and between Islam(s) and European societ(y)(ies).. I applaud the initiative and welcome Islam's willingness to engage with its pluriform socio-political environments.

From the charter :

The rationale for such a charter includes:
- The contribution of Islam to modern Europe as well as the rooted Islamic presence as represented by Muslims in many of the Eastern European states. Likewise, the establishment of Muslim communities in several Western European countries has witnessed a shift from a transitory presence of foreign migrants to a more permanent presence.
- The Muslim presence in Europe requires a framework of citizenship based on justice, equality of rights, with respect for difference, and the recognition of Muslims as a European religious community.
- In line with the expansion and development of the European Union, there is a need for greater co-operation among Muslims of Europe.
- The need to enhance the values of mutual understanding, working for peace and the welfare of society, moderation and inter-cultural dialogue, removed from all inclinations of extremism and exclusion.
- The importance of Islam in the world and its spiritual, human and civilisational potential requires a rapprochement with the West, and Europe in particular, in order to ensure justice and peace in the world.
These considerations have led European Muslim organisations to formulate this charter in the hope of enhancing the role of Muslims in benefiting European society and to help it build bridges with the rest of the Muslim world.

Still, good intentions may not suffice. The Belgian TV magazine Terzake mingled with Flemish muslims to find out what they thought about the charter, and the position of Islam in relation to civil law. The comments are a bit of a cold shower, in that most seem to considers themselves above or beyond the law of the land, and under the rule of Allah first.

The following video is in Flemish. Some comments are telling, as they speak of 'opponents' when depicting non-muslims, describe women as 'equivalent' (and not 'equal') to men, and rank muslim solidarity above civil engagement.
If we really are in the midst of a loud clash of civilisations, it seems muslims themselves contribute liberally to it, and uphold with vigor the us/them distinction that islam apologists attribute to Europe's rightwingers exclusively.

Later in the program, Terzake interviews islam researcher Nadia Fadil (sorry, no video available) who legitimizes and corroborates muslim exceptionalism. In answer to a question about muslim collaboration with the police and the security apparatus, she states that it is "only normal that muslims will not betray their own". A revelatory comment. Christians have been known to 'betray' other Christian burglars before, how come that is not possible in Islam ?

Strikingly, I have never once heard Fadil admonish her own. In her public appearances she maintains the role of an overprotective mother who will excuse her kin on everything and point the finger at all the others. It is deeply saddening to find highly educated Arab people like herself hiding behind the ignorance and/or short-sightedness of large parts of their own community, rather than leading the way in formulating a viable project of engagement.

Terzake video-interview
Download the full text of the muslim charter here

Culture Is Crucial : answering Kanishk Tharoor

Replying to : The Danger of Culture Talk by Kanishk Tharoor at OpenDemocracy

Culture is Crucial

Belgium's national TV currently runs a series of explorations in the world of Islam entitled 'The Road to Mecca'. As it happens, the narrator starts his trip in Cordoba, not only because the south of Spain provides the closest bridgehead to the Maghreb countries, but also because El Andalus epitomizes islamic civilization at its best. Of course, starting from the heyday sets the rest of the narrative on a definitive track : all that follows, is measured as a degree of loss, insufficiency and lack. Tragically enough however, setting off on adventures from Mecca in the center, or the Taj Mahal in the east, would tie the narrator to a similar storyline of fading resonance, and degrading signal-to-noise ratios.

It is precisely this dried-up and shrunken quality of Islam today that defines the plight of muslims, both at home and in the diaspora. Europa has a great deal to thank Islam for, but since its peak in the 10th to 12th century, Islam has not produced any viable political project to date (Hizbullah may embody a valuable oppositional force, just as the Muslim Brotherhood does in Egypt, but as a majority platform it is too reductionist to encompass the complexities of a globalized age); Islam has not produced any science of merit since its medieval contributions to mathematics (the recent divertimento about the do's and don'ts of Islam in space is telling); and the most impressive art it has produced of late is a body of literature that comes from voices who have stepped outside their native islamic frames of reference (and who often paid a high price for it).

Both materialist and ideologic/idealist readings of the problem of radical islam today, commit the vital error of absolving Islam from its own embedded possibilities and responsabilities. Both readings thus hand the potential for change either back to 'the west' or the 'good muslim' - who by default exists as the inverted image of the 'bad muslim', both of which are again defined by their relations to a Western style Enlightenment. Abdelwahab Meddeb, in his incredibly erudite and stimulating book 'La Maladie de l'Islam' (Editions du Seuil, 2002) puts it bluntly : muslims need to enroll in a refreshment course of all the historic exceptions and infringements of the islamic tradition BY the islamic tradition. He provides ample examples of creative, pro-active and universalist, mystical even, reorderings of the central beliefs in Islam. For the record, Meddeb equally appeals to the West to come to terms with its denial and denigration of Islam. I agree. But I also believe that this coming to terms will not happen while the West paternalistically refrains from criticizing Islam, or expressing its own values. In that respect, the examples of the veil and the cartoon-crisis should not be lumped together in the same boxing glove to hit Islam with. The cartoon-crisis quite pointedly demonstrated that the political will of the West to protect free speech against collective silencing is feeble at best. The subsequent juggling act surrounding an anounced (but forbidden) 'protest against islamization' in Brussels on September 11th - widely commented upon in the international press - only serves to underscore the point. The veil is a different matter. The multiplicity of meanings embedded in the wearing of the veil warrants careful deliberation. The problem here is mainly that ad hoc cases have captured a lot of media attention so far, while a fundamental judicial debate and settlement is lacking.

Apologists of Islam invariably invoke the variety of 'islams' that is being practiced worldwide. That may very well be, but this diversity exists largely behind thick curtains of conformity - at least when it comes to projecting its self-image to non-muslims. The crux of the matter is that Islam as practised by its multitude of followers worldwide, has developed only a very slim tolerance of criticism, if at all. Islam - it seems - does not know how to distinguish between ridicule, cynicism and legitimate criticism. Islam must develop its own radical critique, if it is to step out of the shadows of its own demons. To an important extent then, parasitic extremism must indeed be countered by and through the culture it feeds off.

Euro-Islam or Clash of Civilizations ? (E)

An excellent analysis of the position of religion in European society today is offered in Olivier Roy's contribution to Eurotopics.
Roy proposes a reconsideration of the problems related to the radicalization of muslims in the diaspora, as well as born-again christians.
Read the full article here